Pearson Makes 5.14d Ascent in Spain

By David Blackwell

3/16/12 - U.K. climber James Pearson has just completed his first 5.14d, Esclatamasters, in Oliana, Spain. Pearson, 26, made Esclatamasters his project after sending Mind Control (5.14c) about two weeks earlier.

“With Mind Control in the bag, I moved on to my planned ‘long term project’ in the form of Esclatamasters at the little visited cliff of Perles,” wrote Pearson in his blog.

Pearson was forced to take a break from his project after he ripped “a hole the size of Andorra in my [his] middle finger,” on March 11. However, after three days of rest in France with his girlfriend, Caroline Ciavaldini, Pearson came back strong and sent the route, marking his hardest ascent to date.

Pearson has been making splashes in the climbing world for years now, as one of the few climbers who can say they’ve flashed a V13. Pearson has flashed three, including Schule des Lebens in Switzerland.

Pearson is also well known for having climbed one of the “last great problems” of English gritstone, The Groove (E10 7b), in 2008, a difficult line that climbers had been attempting since the 1970s.

Pearson and Ciavaldini have been climbing in Spain for the past couple of weeks, making waves with their ascents: both Pearson and Ciavaldini climbed Mind Control—Ciavaldini being the third woman to have done so—and Pearson climbed Esclatamasters.